Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Processes of circularity

I'm in the early stages of writing a work on regenerating community for an RMIT conference later in the year. Here is my first thesis and a quote from Val Plumwood to give an idea where this work is heading.

Thesis One. It is not possible for communities to regenerate when their systems are based upon linear, aggregate-growth economics. Regeneration is embedded in the processes of ecological circularity – the sharing of resources.
In Western thinking, in contrast [to Aboriginal thinking], the human is set apart from nature as radically other. Religions like Christianity must then seek narrative continuity for the individual in the idea of an authentic self that belongs to an imperishable realm above the lower sphere of nature and animal life. The eternal soul is the real, enduring, and identifying part of the human self, while the body is animal and corrupting. But transcending death this way exacts a great price; it treats the earth as a lower, fallen realm, true human identity as outside nature, and it provides narrative continuity for the individual only in isolation from the cultural and ecological community and in opposition to a person's perishable body. Val Plumwood

3 comments:

one Sunday said...

I thought you were on holiday in the bush with no INTERNET!!!!

Jason said...

Good 'shit' mate!
or shit is good (in other words, in analogy saying the same thing mate (shit as natural part of nature, which is perhaps the hardest aspect of nature for alienated-from-nature humans to reconcile as interconnected with them'selves'.)).
:)
Thanks for your writing, which helped me with some discussions of PermaCultUre recently.
I'm a natural/nature farmer, successfully bearing 'fruit' here in SE Oz, a naturalist, a professional field ecologist & restoration ecologist, lastly GIS analyst.
I read some of Val Plumwood's great writing.
I might take the liberty of suggesting, in the sense of my analogy above, that Bateson's "Steps to an Ecology of Mind" is quality.
And, Tim Denham's writing & work is great quality too, eg.:
-> http://www.adelaide.edu.au/efn/projects/wgp/TDenham_Project.html
-> http://books.google.com/books?id=zar4PgAACAAJ
-> http://books.google.com/books?id=UiW1AAAAIAAJ

Please keep up the intelligent commentary.

Thanks
Cheers,

Jase.
Thanks Cheers

Permapoesis said...

thanks so much, i'll def chase up those links. shooting back some tasty reading here.

cheers,

p